Robison looked impressive, but the newspaper man was unimpressed.
“You'll have the pleasure of covering when he arrives as usual. Your operation is of the kind that sounds wise.”
“How much do I stand to lose by covering, say, in a few minutes? A fraction! How much do I stand to gain if something has happened? Five or ten points! It's a fifty-to-one shot. I'll take it every time. Here, boy, rush this to the office and hurry back. Tell Mr. Richards I shall need another boy besides you, for a few minutes only.”
Young Sweeney hurried away with Robison's order to sell one thousand shares of Con. Steel “at the market.”
“There are men who will risk money on the shadow cast by a human hair,” observed Kidder, pleasantly. “In assuming that disaster has overtaken Garrettson—”
“I assume nothing. I know that something unusual has happened! What the nature of it is I know not—nor whether it is capitalizable, sight unseen. Here, boy!” Sweeney had returned with a colleague and Robison sent the new boy back with an order to sell two thousand shares of Steel. Watch in hand, Robison stood staring unblinkingly toward the north. Kidder also looked up Nassau Street, expecting and—such, alas, is human nature!—hoping to see Garrettson's familiar coupé.
“Here, boy!” And Robison sent off another selling-order. He kept this up until he had put out a short line of ten thousand shares.
At ten-fifteen he said to Kidder:
“Let us go over to Garrettson's office. His nonarrival is news, Kidder.”
“He may have stopped on the way to do some shopping—”